True History
by KateCarter
Summary: Miral Paris and Emma Janeway learn a history lesson...


True History  
  
By Kate O'Riley  
  
Disclaimer: Some characters are Paramount's. Some are mine. The story is mine. My mind is mine. This story is from my mind. And I'm confusing myself.  
  
Time: 17 years after "Endgame"  
  
Codes: J/C, P/T  
  
Rating: PG  
  
"History is a pack of lies agreed upon." – Napoleon, French emperor, 1769- 1821  
  
"History is bunk!" – Henry Ford, American automobile manufacturer, 1863- 1947  
  
"History is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake." – James Joyce, Irish author, 1882-1941  
  
"History is indeed, little more then the register of crime, follies, and misfortunes of mankind." – Edward Gibbon, English historian, 1737-1794  
  
  
  
Emma Janeway was nervous as she pressed the button to open the communication. Her whole future depended on what it said. Ever since she could remember, she wanted to join Starfleet. She'd been encouraged to. She supposed it came from being the daughter of two legends in Starfleet.  
  
When her mother had encouraged her to try to get in two years early ("Emma, I know you can do it. You are a extremely bright girl."), then had finally resorted to trying to order her to do it and giving her what her father called "the death glare", she'd gone and tried. She knew that if she didn't get in, she could try again for several years. But she'd been under so much pressure that she wanted to get in now.  
  
She pressed the button. As she read the letter, her face lit up.  
  
"MOM!" she screamed. Totally forgetting decoram, she raced through the house until she found her mother, who was sitting in the living room with her father, discussing something. She burst into the room.  
  
"I made it!"  
  
Her mother immediately stood up and hugged her. "I knew you could!"  
  
Her father stood too. "That's my girl. Just as bright as your mother." He winked at Emma. "Just wait. Someday you'll be as famous as her."  
  
"I'm going to go tell Miral!" Emma said, turning and darting out of the room.  
  
Kathryn Janeway smiled as her daughter went. She turned to her husband. "She's growing up fast."  
  
He put his hand on her shoulder. "I know. Hard to believe it's been this long."  
  
"You know, if Admiral Janeway hadn't gone back in the past, Voyager would only have been home a year, and Emma would never have been born. You and I never would have gotten married." She said softly, sitting back on the couch.  
  
Chakotay sat beside her. "That still bothers you, doesn't it?"  
  
"I just can't believe I would do something like that. Even now, seventeen years later, I don't believe it." She murmured.  
  
She rested her head on his shoulder. "Kathryn, that wasn't you. That was a different person. But Admiral Janeway did it to save Seven, to save Tuvok, to save Voyager. You need to deal with it. Besides, like you said, if she hadn't, Emma wouldn't be here, we wouldn't be here like we are." Chakotay said softly.  
  
"I know." She glanced at the door, where Emma had gone. "Chakotay, is it selfish of me to wish we were back in the Delta Quadrant though?"  
  
"Why?"  
  
"I know we have a good life here, but sometimes…" she sighed. "I want to be on Voyager. I want to be back there. Life was hard, but the crew was a family."  
  
"And we still are, Kathryn. We still are."  
  
=/\=  
  
Emma raced down the road. The hot, summer Indiana sun beat down on her as she ran the half-kilometer to the Paris house.  
  
She burst through the door. Knocking had never been done. "Miral!"  
  
B'Elanna Torres turned from where she was fiddling with a computer. "She's upstairs."  
  
"Hi Aunt B'Elanna, hi Uncle Tom, hi Doc!" she said, including Tom and the Doctor, who were discussing something. "I made it!"  
  
"Good for you!" Tom called as Emma raced upstairs to find Miral.  
  
Emma dug her heels into the carpet in order to turn into Miral's room. "I made it!"  
  
Miral turned from her computer. She was two years older then Emma, but they were best friends. "So did I!"  
  
"And you didn't come to tell me?" Emma asked. "I feel insulted."  
  
"Sorry! I was sending messages to Uncle Harry and Naomi and Icheb."  
  
"Maybe we'll get to be in their classes."  
  
"You'll probably get whatever you want, being the daughter of the Voyager command team."  
  
"You probably could too, being granddaughter of an admiral and daughter of the chief engineer and helm officers of Voyager."  
  
Miral shrugged. "Who knows? Mom said just remember I'm only a quarter Klingon. Dad said remember to always tell the truth and don't try fancy tricks with a shuttle. I think they're worried I'll repeat what they did."  
  
"You won't. You're lucky though. I have to live up to my mom's reputation."  
  
"So?"  
  
"So," Emma sat on Miral's bed, "I'm kind of afraid…I'll fail."  
  
Miral shook her head. "You won't. Besides," she gave a impish grin, the same one her father had that made her mother call him a pig, "you can just give anyone who makes you mad a patented Janeway Death Glare and vaporize them in their tracks."  
  
Emma gave Miral a light punch. "Not funny."  
  
The sounds of the girls talking continued to fill the room for an hour.  
  
=/\=  
  
"You sure you don't want us to come with you?" Chakotay asked.  
  
"I'll be fine Dad." Emma insisted.  
  
"I can come. I have some business at Command anyway." Kathryn said.  
  
"No! I'm going to go, and I'll talk to you tonight, and I'll see you this weekend. Good bye." She gave them both hugs before walking onto the transporter pad. "Energize."  
  
She materialized at Starfleet Academy. After getting directions and checking in, she walked to her room. She was slightly afraid about being on her own, not that she'd tell her parents.  
  
Her room mate wasn't there yet. Emma chose a bed and started unpacking her things. Then, the window diverted her attention.  
  
The view was of something well known to her: Voyager herself. The ship had been retired and made into a museum.  
  
"Well, at least I'll have you, old friend." She said softly. "Maybe I can pull the 'daughter of the captain' trick and sit in Mom's chair. Or Dad's." She gave a smile and a quick laugh. "Maybe I can see about using Dad's office as a study room. That's not part of the tour. Or I can see about pulling that trick Uncle Tom told me about and use a remote control to put the ship on red alert. Maybe while a tourist group is in there. A large one." She laughed.  
  
The door opened. Emma instantly spun around. Who would her room mate be?  
  
To her relief, a very familiar face appeared.  
  
"Miral!"  
  
"Emma?"  
  
The girls hugged. Then they talked over each other. "I can't believe it! You're my room mate!" "This is so cool!"  
  
Then Emma pulled Miral over to the window. "Look!"  
  
Miral grinned at the sight. "Good. You know, maybe we should pull that red alert remote trick…"  
  
Emma laughed. "My thoughts exactly."  
  
=/\=  
  
The next few weeks flew by in a hurry. They were thrilled to find that they gotten Harry's, Naomi's and Icheb's classes, thanks in part to a request put in by Admiral Paris, although they didn't know it. Work was piled on them. However, Miral and Emma did find the time to take a tour of Voyager…  
  
The tour guide droned on. The group was large, so he didn't noticed when the girls seperated while they were on the way back from Engineering. Miral pulled open a hatch to the Jeffries tubes and crawled inside. Emma followed, closing the hatch and carrying the tricorder they brought. The girls crawled through the tubes, taking a ladder up so they'd exit on the top level of engineering.  
  
They crawled out of the tube and Miral started typing commands into the computer. She'd inherited her mother's engineering skills, and B'Elanna had seen to it that she was as comfortable in a engine room as she was in her own home.  
  
The doors to Engineering hissed open. "Get down!" Emma hissed. The girls flattened themselves against the floor. No groups ever came to the second level.  
  
"And this is Engineering. The chief engineer was Lt. B'Elanna Torres, a Maquis who broke another engineer's nose shortly before she became chief engineer. However, despite this, Captain Janeway gave her the post. She continued in this post even though she betrayed the ship early in the journey."  
  
A tourist asked "Why did the captain let her do this, then?"  
  
"Because the commander had been captain to the lieutenant. He blackmailed the captain by threatening a mutiny of the Maquis. Now, out this way."  
  
Emma and Miral looked at each other. "That's a lie!" Miral whispered. "Yeah, my mother broke Lt. Carey's nose, but she didn't betray the ship!"  
  
"And my father never threatened a mutiny!" Emma whispered back. Her eyes burned with anger. "I'd like to shoot that guide!"  
  
"Well, we can't let them know we're here. We'd spoil our plan. Besides, he wasn't on Voyager. He doesn't know anything anyway."  
  
"Yeah." Emma was silent as Miral finished the program and downloaded it to the tricorder. She was silent as they crawled back into the Jefferies tube.  
  
"Come on Emma. Want to do it?" Miral said. Emma nodded. "Large group, entering right now. Let's give them ten minutes. They'll be at the bridge by then."  
  
The ten minutes passed. "3, 2, 1, now!" Emma pushed the button. Instantly, the red alert klaxons began to go off. Emma and Miral grinned at each other. Miral shoved the hatch open.  
  
"Let's get out of here. They'll be looking for us!"  
  
The girls ran down the corridor. Luckily, they weren't noticed once they joined the crowd of panicked tourists streaming to the exit. Miral winked at Emma and pushed another button. The red alert lights and klaxons changed to blue alert, ship liftoff. The tourists started running away from the exits. Emma and Miral ran off the ramp and towards their room. They were almost there when…  
  
"Emma Janeway. Miral Paris. What were you doing?"  
  
The girls stopped and turned around, where the voice had come from. There stood Kathryn Janeway.  
  
"Mom. Hi." Emma said weakly. She knew her mother was mad. With her hands placed firmly on her hips, her brow lowered, her lips a thin line, and her eyes looking like she'd pull out a phaser rifle any second, she had what Tom Paris called "The Glare of Death".  
  
"Aunt Kathryn. Didn't expect to see you." Miral sounded just as weak.  
  
"What. Were. You. Doing." It wasn't a request.  
  
"Um…we were just visiting Voyager." Emma said.  
  
"Why do you have a tricorder?"  
  
"We were practicing! Preparing for our class tomorrow. We're supposed to demonstrate efficency with a tricorder." Miral said.  
  
"Hand it over."  
  
Shooting Emma a look that was the equivilent of saying 'we are *so* dead', Miral handed it over.  
  
Janeway looked at it. "Girls…" she sighed. "Let's continue this in your room."  
  
=/\=  
  
"I am extremely disappointed in both of you," she began. She paced up and down the room. "What posessed you to do that?"  
  
"It was my fault." They said in unison.  
  
"Mom, I know we shouldn't have done that." Emma began.  
  
Janeway sighed and rubbed her forehead. "Then why did you?"  
  
Emma ignored the question and continued. "But when we were downloading the program from Uncle Tom's old files, we overheard a tourist group. They asked some questions, and the guide lied. He said that Dad had blackmailed you into letting Aunt B'Elanna keep her position by threatening a Maquis mutiny. And he said Aunt B'Elanna betrayed the ship early on."  
  
Janeway frowned. "What else?"  
  
"Nothing. That was it." Miral said quietly.  
  
"Girls, hard as it might be to believe, not everyone is happy Voyager came back. Because the former Maquis got off without prison terms, mainly. Your grandfather, Miral, had a lot to do with that. He wouldn't let your mother be put in prison, not after she'd just had you. And I didn't want to see Chakotay in prison. Some people were angry that we brought a former Borg drone back. They were afraid Seven would assimalate them, I guess." She laughed, but it was humorless. "Quite frankly girls, I've wished more then once that we were back in the Delta Quadrant. Your father has too, Emma, and Miral, both of your parents have told me they wanted to go back ."  
  
"So Voyager wasn't a good thing for some people." Emma said softly. "But you brought back so much. And you destroyed the Borg."  
  
"I know. But some people, relatives of crewmembers who had died, were also unhappy because their family members were gone. They blamed me for not bringing everyone back alive." Janeway was silent a moment. "It wasn't all bad though. Owen Paris got his son, daughter in law, and granddaughter, and Samantha Wildman's husband got his wife and a daughter he didn't know about. Mr. and Mrs. Kim got Harry back, and T'Pel got Tuvok. So many losses, but likewise, so many gains. You girls will learn that lesson. There are people who resent Voyager, right here at the Academy. But you know it's true history." She stood up and walked over to the window, gazing at Voyager. "I miss that ship so much." She said softly.  
  
Emma slipped over and hugged her. Janeway hugged her daughter, but continued looking at the ship. Then she turned back around, all business again.  
  
"I don't want to see you two get in trouble. I won't report that you did it. But I will tell Chakotay and your parents, Miral. And no more tricks like that. Understood?"  
  
Emma sighed. "You mean we can't play pranks with the holoemitters in sickbay?"  
  
"Under no circumstances." Janeway said, laughing. She hugged both girls. "I need to go. I'll see you both on the weekend."  
  
The girls both snapped to attention and saluted as she walked out the door. "Yes ma'am!"  
  
Her voice was faint, but they still heard it. "No ma'ams!"  
  
=/\=  
  
"Today, we will start our study on recent history, proceeding backwards from the last big event of the 2370's. Can anyone tell me what happened in 2376?" Commander Atkins, Miral and Emma's history teacher, asked the class.  
  
A cadet shot his hand up. "End of the Dominion War, sir!"  
  
"Very good Cadet."  
  
As he continued, Miral and Emma frowned. Miral leaned over to Emma.  
  
"He didn't mention Voyager." She whispered.  
  
"I know. Wonder why? It was a huge event." Emma whispered back.  
  
Miral shrugged. "Pathfinder was pretty big too."  
  
The instructor was now in the 2360's. "He didn't even mention Voyager's disappearence." Emma whispered.  
  
"I wonder why-" Miral was cut off by the commander, who had noticed them. "Something you would like to share with the class, cadets?"  
  
Emma stood up. "Yes sir. Permission to speak freely?"  
  
"Granted." He said dryly.  
  
"Sir, you didn't mention Voyager. That was a big event. In 2378, it returned after seven years in the Delta Quadrant. Captain Janeway's older self, an admiral from twenty-six years in the future, returned and brought new technology, and aided in defeating the Borg." It felt odd to be talking about her mother in that context.  
  
The commander lifted an eyebrow. "She also violated numerous protocals, not to mention the Prime Directive several times."  
  
"She never violated the Prime Directive, and if she violated protocals, it was trying to survive, and trying to get her crew home." Emma refused to get angry.  
  
"That's right sir." Miral stood also.  
  
The commander's lip turned up into a sneer. "And who told you that? Your mother?"  
  
"As a matter of fact, she did." Emma said quietly.  
  
"Well, that's right. Your mother is a expert on Voyager. She knows the captain personally." The commander's voice took on a taunting tone. "She knows everyone on Voyager, doesn't she?"  
  
"As a matter of fact, she does."  
  
"Well, don't believe everything your mother's told you. Get into the real world. I extremely doubt she knows Voyager's captain."  
  
Emma allowed herself a small, victorious smile. "Actually, sir, my mother is Kathryn Janeway, captain of the U.S.S. Voyager NCC-74656. My father is Chakotay, executive officer of the U.S.S. Voyager."  
  
She was glad to see the commander at a loss for words.  
  
Miral spoke up. "And my father is Tom Paris, Voyager's helm officer, and my mother is B'Elanna Torres, Voyager's chief engineer." She glanced at Emma, her look saying "We're showing him!".  
  
But the commander hadn't given up. "Why should I believe you?"  
  
Emma looked at him. "May I use the monitor?" she asked politely. Without waiting for a go-ahead, she typed in a command.  
  
After a moment, her mother appeared on the screen. "Emma? Is something wrong?" she asked.  
  
"Mom, can you please tell Commander Atkins who you are?" Emma asked.  
  
She looked slightly confused. "Kathryn Janeway."  
  
"Could you please tell what you were doing between 2371 and 2378?" Emma said.  
  
A hint of knowing came into her eyes. "I was captain of the U.S.S. Voyager."  
  
"Thanks. Miral and I are learning that lesson you mentioned." Emma said. "Sorry to bother you."  
  
"Emma, you know it's no bother. I'll see you this weekend."  
  
"See you. Goodbye." Emma keyed it off. She turned back to Atkins.  
  
"Now do you believe me, or does Cadet Paris need to get her parents?" she asked quietly, emphasizing "Paris" some.  
  
Commander Atkins looked amazed. "No need for that."  
  
"Good." Emma and Miral sat down.  
  
After a minute of silence, Miral spoke up. "Commander? You were saying?"  
  
The commander shook his head, startled. "Where was I?"  
  
As he talked, Miral and Emma looked at each other and smiled. They'd gotten past this. They had begun learning a difficult lesson. But maybe, Emma thought, maybe if they kept talking about it, and telling people the truth, the true history would be what went down. And that would be fine with her. 


End file.
